LG is trying to do something big to shake up the smartphone market. They just introduced the speedy Optimus 2X and Phandroid has picked up an exclusive which details the LG B against the Samsung Galaxy S (labeled "S" in the chart below) and the iPhone 4 (labeled "R" in the chart below). This smartphone will be running on the Android OS and may actually be the thinnest smartphone on the market whenever that is. Along with that, it may actually have one of the best mobile displays on the market. It's in the center in the picture below.

Apparently, it'll be packing a 4-inch IPS LCD display which has 700 nits of brightness; that's a bit higher than the iPhone 4's IPS LCD display which has 500 nits of brightness. You can clearly see that it also beats out the Galaxy S's Super AMOLED display. Let's hope we see more of this one at either CES or MWC in early 2011.

Update: According to Crunch Gear, this handset has just been confirmed by LG's own Twitter account (pic below the chart). They also mention that we'll be seeing it at CES 2011!

Coming from DigiTimes, is word on some Windows Phone 7 handsets getting unveiled at MWC 2011 which is expected. Apparently though, this includes the Asus E600 which hit the FCC about 10 days ago. Along with this news is word that Microsoft plans to launch a Chinese-edition of WP7 in the second half of 2011 and we can expect devices from Lenovo, Huawei, and ZTE. At the same time we can also expect the "Mango" update which will include a bunch of new features.

HP has just filed for a bunch of codenames that could very well be Palm's upcoming WebOS-based models - at least that's what everyone's hoping. The three codenames that the company filed for are Gyst, Myte, and Veer. We don't know if they'll actually be put to use right now but maybe Palm's testing out a few new devices at their headquarters. We just hope that Palm can live up to their word of being in a different position a year from now, which means they'll need to release a better smartphone and a great tablet. We believe!

MTS has just released the BlackBerry Style 9670 for $99 if you have access to them in Canada. Of course, at that price you'll be tied down to a lengthy 3-year contract. Other price points are $199.99 on a 2-year contract and $424.99 on a 1-year contract. The smartphone itself has a flip design with a full QWERTY keyboard, a microSD card slot, WiFi / Bluetooth support, a 5MP AF camera with an LED flash, an optical trackpad, and BB OS 6.0 with the new WebKit browser. Check it out on MTS.

If you live in Europe, then you might want to check out the budget Android phone, the LG Optimus Chic. This handset is now available for 283 Euros (around $375 USD) and is actually running on Android 2.2 "Froyo" so it's not a bad deal. The Optimus Chic is a mid-end touchscreen phone with a 3.2-inch HVGA display, a 5MP camera, WiFi b/g / Bluetooth 2.1 support, a 600MHz CPU, and DLNA support. This handset will also be hitting South Korea as early as next week as well.

Today's the day a bunch of people have been waiting for. The first Android "Gingerbread" powered smartphone is here, and that's the Samsung-made Nexus S. This smartphone is one of the first with NFC capabilities in North America so this is somewhat future-proof. Specs include a 4-inch Super AMOLED capacitive touchscreen WVGA Contour display (480 x 800 resolution), a 1GHz ARM Cortex A8 CPU, a 5MP AF camera with an LED flash, a front-facing VGA camera, no microSD card slot, 16GB of internal storage, WiFi b/g/n / Bluetooth 2.1 support, aGPS, a 3.5mm headphone jack, and a 1,500mAh battery.

This is one of the best smartphones on the market but it does have some let downs. It's lacking a microSD card slot, HD video recording, and has the old-school Bluetooth 2.1 on board. The choice is yours now. NFC and fast updates from Google themselves or will you be waiting for next year's batch of blazing fast smartphones?

Known as the Dell Thunder when it first leaked out, the Dell Venue has been officially announced by the carrier KT, in Korea. The Dell Venue is quite similar to the Windows Phone 7 powered Venue Pro, but it doesn't have the slide-out portrait QWERTY keyboard and it actually runs Android 2.2. So, that means you still get a 4.1-inch touchscreen WVGA (Gorilla Glass) display, a microSD card slot, WiFi / Bluetooth support, an upgraded 8MP AF camera with an LED flash and 720p HD video recording, and a 1GHz Snapdragon CPU. This handset will be available on the carrier later this month and should cost you around 700,000 won ($608 USD). This is the only launch we know of right now so if it is North American bound, we'll likely find out early next year.

Here's an interesting one coming from DigiTimes. They have just mentioned that Apple plans to upgrade the MacBook Pro and the iMac line-up sometime in the first half of 2011. Apparently, there'll be four different sizes for the MacBook Pro. Currently, there's 13, 15, and 17-inch models so what will the new one be? It's unknown right now but I'm thinking an 11 or even a 14-inch model could get squeezed in there, but those are just my guesses (of course, a 12-inch model is also possible). The website also mentions that there'll be a new size for the iMac. That size is also unknown so we'll have to wait for that; Crunch Gear is guessing that it'll be a 24-incher.

All of these models are going to have a touchscreen display because they'll all come pre-installed with the new Mac OS X Lion which is the start to bring together the desktop Mac OS X with iOS so it'll have some touch capabilities if that's your thing.

Just like the title says, the LG (P990) Star has just gotten official as the Optimus 2X. This smartphone will be available in January 2011 starting in Korea, then a release in Europe, then finally to rest of Asia. I'm crossing my fingers for a North American release because this is definitely the fastest and possibly the best smartphone on the market. The Optimus 2X features a dual-core Nvidia Tegra 2 chip, a 4-inch WVGA display, 8GB of internal storage, a microSD card slot, an 8MP rear-facing camera with 1080p HD video recording, a 1.3MP front-facing camera, DLNA support, 1080p playback, a 1,500mAh battery, and Android 2.2 (upgradeable to version 2.3 whenever it's ready. Talk about LG spoiling Samsung and Google's plans for the Nexus S which comes out today. Maybe you'll want to think twice about getting that now.